Tinseltown: Murder, Morphine, and Madness at the Dawn of Hollywood

by William J. Mann

  Even though he did not know what was to come, Zukor’s system survived television, video, DVDs, and even the Internet, accommodating them all as new venues for the presentation of moving pictures. That’s what came of keeping “the whole equation” in his head.

  Not until 1948 did the government finally force the movie studios—all of them, not just Paramount—to divest themselves of their theater chains. By then Zukor was happily ensconced as chairman emeritus. In 1953 he published a memoir, The Public Is Never Wrong, which he dedicated to his wife Lottie. The book is free of any real introspection, though it shares some good stories of the early days. About the scandals he had done his utmost to contain and control, Zukor said little. Without further comment or a hint of sympathy, he wrote, “To the day of [Arbuckle’s] death in 1933, the storm had not abated sufficiently so that he could make another picture.” He offered no details of his part in that storm. Of the Taylor case, Zukor said it made for “good reading,” and recalled the fodder it gave to “dozens of special correspondents” who painted Hollywood as “a wicked, wicked city.” Of Taylor’s papers, or the actions he’d taken after reading them, Zukor said nothing. He took that secret with him to the grave.

  Zukor had never been one for soul-searching; that was Marcus Loew territory. He spent his golden years peacefully, relying on Lottie for company, seemingly free of regret. One day in 1956, when Zukor was eighty-three, Lottie insisted on making him one of her special Hungarian meals all by herself, served on their best china. Zukor would say they “never had such a time.” The next day Lottie suffered a stroke that eventually killed her. Zukor took her death “very philosophically,” his son Eugene said, “because he remembered their last night together.”

  Zukor would live another twenty years, spending his winters in Los Angeles to be near Eugene. Almost every day he was driven to the Paramount lot, slowly ascending the stairs to his office, going over the company’s financial reports with a careful eye.

  For his hundredth birthday, Zukor was feted with a gala party. Twelve hundred people filled the ballroom at the Beverly Hilton. Charles Bluhdorn, chairman of Gulf & Western, Paramount’s new owners, declared that Zukor “exemplified the American dream.”

  The little man with the unblinking eyes sat in his chair, looking out at all the people who had come to pay their respects. When Marcus Loew died, his funeral had brought out all of his peers, but Zukor’s peers were long dead. Most of the people who had come for his party were too young to have seen a first-run silent picture. They didn’t remember William Desmond Taylor, or Roscoe Arbuckle, or Mabel Normand, or Jesse Lasky, or Will Hays, or Brother Wilbur Crafts. They had little understanding of the changes Zukor had seen and wrought. He had started with a handful of penny arcades, and lived long enough to see the age of the blockbuster. Jaws was in the nation’s theaters during the last year of the old man’s life.

  “Moses lived to a hundred and twenty,” the rabbi at his birthday party said.

  Creepy just smiled.

  He died in 1976, at the age of one hundred and three.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I could not have written this book without the extraordinary work of Bruce Long. Three decades ago Bruce started discovering, assembling, analyzing, and making available material on the Taylor murder. This book is one of many that owes him an incalculable debt: every study of American silent film benefits from the material Bruce has compiled in his book William Desmond Taylor: A Dossier, and on his remarkable and compulsively readable site, taylorology.com.

  Recognition must also go to Sidney D. Kirkpatrick and the late Robert Giroux and Charles Higham, authors of previous books on the Taylor murder. While I believe that my solution to the long-unsolved crime is the correct one—and the only one not contradicted by the available evidence—each of these three previous writers conducted invaluable research that informed my understanding of my subjects and the times they lived in. I am deeply indebted to all of them.

  My thanks to the historians, librarians, and archivists who helped me uncover so many artifacts from nearly a century ago. In alphabetical order: Louise Corliss, Vermont State Archives; Simon Elliott, UCLA Library Special Collections; Natalie Fritz, Clark County Historical Society, Springfield, Ohio; Sandra Garcia-Myers, Cinematic Arts Library, University of Southern California; Barbara Hall, Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills, California; David Hardy, Records Management Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation; David W. Jackson, Jackson County Historical Society, Independence, Missouri; Ginny Kilander, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming; Glenn V. Longacre, National Archives, Chicago; Harry Miller, Wisconsin Historical Society; Joann Nichols, Brattleboro Historical Society, Vermont; Albert Palacios, Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas, Austin; Galen Wilson, National Archives, Federal Records Center, Dayton, Ohio; and various archivists from the New York Public Library, main branch as well as the Performing Arts Library in Lincoln Center; the Los Angeles County Archives; and the Boston Public Library.

  Also of enormous help were the Mabel Normand Sourcebook, painstakingly compiled by William Thomas Sherman and hosted at mn-hp.com, and the site Looking for Mabel Normand by Marilyn Slater.

  A special thank-you to Tim, Pat, and June Duran, who shared memories of their grandfather and great-grandfather, Detective Lieutenant Eddie King; Nicole Westwood, who answered questions and shared photos of her grandfather, District Attorney Thomas Lee Woolwine; Jeffrey Shallit, who shared his research about his great-uncle, Lawrence (Outlaw) MacLean; Peter Crown, who shared his research about his grandfather, Sydney Cohen; and of course, Ray Long, without whose sharp memory and willingness to come forward we would never have known about Margaret Gibson and her connection to Taylor.

  Thanks also to Catherine Lindstrom, Patrick McGilligan, Lisa E. Morrow Koogler, and David Williams for providing information and research assistance.

  Finally, gratitude to my editor, Cal Morgan, for believing in this project from the start; Milan Bozic and Leah Carlson-Stanisic, for the beautiful design of the book; Kathleen Baumer, for pulling everything together expertly; my resolute agent, Malaga Baldi; and my husband, Dr. Tim Huber, my first and best critic as always.

  NOTES

  Most of my citations are from primary sources. In addition to letters, telegrams, newspaper accounts, production files, police records, witness statements, and other documents, I have also used a wide variety of contemporary material to bring Hollywood in the early 1920s back to life. When I describe the yellow paint of the Wallace Apartments, for example, or the old chandelier in the Melrose Hotel, it’s based on photographs (sometimes old postcards) that depict such places. When I mention the partly dirt roads of downtown Los Angeles, my descriptions come from maps and city records. When I remark on the weather on a particular day, I’m using weather reports published in local newspapers. It would be impossible to document each time a photograph or weather report or other background source is used. Witness statements, inquest testimony, and probate files, however, can be found at taylorology.com.

  The numerous manuscript collections that I utilized at various archives are all cited in the following notes.

  ABBREVIATIONS

  AMPAS

  Sennett Collection, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills, CA.

  Brownlow interview

  Interview with Mary Miles Minter by Kevin Brownlow, March 27, 1971, King Vidor Papers.

  FBI case file

  Federal Bureau of Investigation, case file on Don Osborn et al., October 21, 1923.

  Higham transcript

  Interview with Mary Miles Minter by Charles Higham, given to Bruce Long, transcribed by Long.

  MPPDA

  Digital Archives of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association.

  NBR

  National Board of Review Collection, NYPL.

  NYPL

  Zukor file, New York Public Library.

  Osborn, 1923

&n
bsp; Testimony, United States vs. Don Osborn et al., District Court of the United States, Southern District of Ohio (1923).

  WHH

  Will H. Hays papers, Boston Public Library.

  PROLOGUE: A COLD MORNING IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

  the vehicle emerged from the shadows: Oakland Tribune, February 16, 1922; Oxnard Daily Courier, February 16, 1922; Sacramento Bee, February 18, 1922.

  “spent to keep him comfortable”: Los Angeles Times, February 3, 1922.

  the Owl Drug at the corner of Fifth: Peavey testimony, coroner’s inquest, February 4, 1922.

  he paid $1: Taylor probate file, creditor’s claim, Henry Peavey, February 25, 1922.

  The valet’s troubles had begun: “Peavey’s arrest followed assorted acts of indecency several days ago in Westlake Park.” Los Angeles Times, February 3, 1922. Westlake Park was later renamed MacArthur Park.

  “worked for a lot of men”: Los Angeles Examiner, February 3, 1922.

  “I’ve got to read all these”: Los Angeles Times, February 3, 1922.

  his usual morning routine: Los Angeles Examiner, February 3, 1922; Los Angeles Record, February 3, 1922.

  CHAPTER 1: A MAN CALLED CREEPY

  “long like an Indian chief’s”: Neal Gabler, An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood (New York: Crown, 1988).

  his employees called him Creepy: Zukor had this nickname while still working with Marcus Loew, thus before 1912. Motion Picture Herald, February 6, 1937.

  spent $4.4 million for the old Putnam Building: New York Tribune, October 21, 1920; New York Times, June 3, 1922.

  the fourth largest industry: This was a claim frequently made by the film industry in the years from 1920 to 1924. The auto industry was known to boast that it was the third largest industry (as in the New York Times, July 7, 1918), so it’s possible the film industry was using that as a way to quantify and compare its earnings. In fact, retail clothing manufacturers also called themselves the nation’s fourth largest industry; New York Times, July 4, 1920. While preparing position papers for himself when he became head of the MPPDA in 1922, Will H. Hays crossed out “fourth” and wrote in “one of the” largest industries in the country. Digital Archives of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association, Flinders Institute for Research in the Humanities (hereafter MPPDA).

  three quarters of a billion dollars: Industry economic statistics are taken from a report prepared by the MPPDA, 1922.

  returns of 500 to 700 percent: New York Evening World, January 24, 1922.

  total assets of $49 million: August 1922, Will H. Hays papers, which I used at the Boston Public Library.

  Its stock-market value: Variety, July 30, 1920.

  “As a consequence”: Variety, August 6, 1920.

  “Mr. Zukor finds out anything”: Unsourced clipping, n.d. [1919], Zukor file, New York Public Library (hereafter NYPL).

  “beautiful dark eyes”: Adolph Zukor, The Public Is Never Wrong (New York: Putnam, 1953).

  “The revelries began at once”: New York Evening World, May 30, 1921.

  Mr. Fred Lord: For more details on the extortion case and the night at Mishawum Manor, see Boston Globe, June 9, July 12, July 13, 1921; New York Times, June 25, June 26, July 12, July 13, 1921.

  CHAPTER 2: BABYLON

  the census had counted: Variety, February 10, 1922.

  “sudden and grandiose rise”: New York Times, December 13, 1925.

  “the church of the future”: New York Times, December 13, 1925.

  CHAPTER 3: THREE DESPERATE DAMES

  She had a train to catch: On August 25, 1920, the Los Angeles Times reported that Normand “left yesterday” for New York.

  “If they will tide you over”: A. Scott Berg, Goldwyn: A Biography (New York: Knopf, 1989).

  “harassed,” St. John thought: Photoplay, August 1921.

  “six best cellars”: Los Angeles Herald, December 8, 1920.

  On a late summer day: “Patricia Palmer” spoke about “walking the streets” (an interesting choice of words, given her arrest) on “hot summer afternoons,” handing out her resumé and photos to “everyone she knew in the business who might give her a job.” Unsourced clip, September 15, 1920, Robinson Locke Collection, NYPL.

  “Before Western girls are sent”: Cincinnati Commercial Tribune, July 19, 1914. For more information on Vitagraph and the world of which Gibby and Taylor were a part, see Anthony Slide, The Big V: A History of the Vitagraph Company (Scarecrow Press, 1987).

  “made no secret”: Mary Miles Minter, witness statement, March 4, 1926.

  “They fought all the time”: Charlotte Whitney, witness statement, November 28, 1925.

  The director was being promoted: Realart films were “lower budget [for a] lower rental bracket,” as producer Jesse Lasky described them in his memoir I Blow My Own Horn (New York: Doubleday, 1957). So the move for Taylor was definitely a promotion. “Films directed and produced by Taylor will be trademarked ‘William D. Taylor Productions,’” the Los Angeles Herald reported on December 18, 1919, “and given the same prominence and publicity that now is given those of Cecil B. De Mille.”

  CHAPTER 4: THE ORATOR

  “bony look of a stone bishop”: Charles Higham, Murder in Hollywood (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006).

  “even a bit of jewelry”; “quiet, like a camouflaged”: Rocky Mountain News, February 12, 1922.

  “great sadness” in his life: Los Angeles Examiner, February 4, 1922.

  “Give the public real human pictures”: Los Angeles Express, December 17, 1919.

  RUMORS OF DRUG AND WINE PARTIES: Los Angeles Times, September 11, 1920.

  GAY REVELS IN UNDERWORLD: Syracuse Herald, September 12, 1920.

  “sinister rumors of cocaine orgies”: Los Angeles Times, September 11, 1920.

  “stars and stagehands”: Los Angeles Record, September 27, 1920.

  “The motion picture is doing”: Wire reports, as in the Paris (KY) Bourbon News, June 9, 1920.

  “Film subject matter”: Zukor, Public Is Never Wrong.

  “a woman making baby clothes”: New York Times, April 21, 1920.

  “Sweet little Clarine Seymour”: Details of the memorial service come from the Los Angeles Times, September 27, 1920; Los Angeles Herald, September 24, 1920; Los Angeles Record, September 27, 1920; Los Angeles Examiner, September 27, 1920; Camera!, February 4, 1922; and syndicated wire service reports, as in the Billings (MT) Gazette, December 5, 1920.

  “William Taylor’s beautiful tribute”: Los Angeles Examiner, September 27, 1920.

  “His sympathy”: Camera!, February 4, 1922.

  CHAPTER 5: A RACE TO THE TOP

  Another movie mogul: Details of Marcus Loew’s building were announced in the New York Times on September 23, 1920, but stories had appeared earlier, as on February 6 and 8.

  “a dandy in a high hat”: Zukor, Public Is Never Wrong.

  “I wear ’em to impress ’em”: Will Irwin, The House That Shadows Built (New York: Doubleday, Doran, 1928).

  “a jolly mixer type”: Photoplay, August 1927.

  “had lost his head”: Zukor, Public Is Never Wrong.

  “I have had the help”: Photoplay, August 1927.

  a lavish wedding: New York Times, January 7, 1920.

  “Then you did not let blood”: New York Times, November 2, 1933.

  the combined annual income of all American producers: Wall Street Journal, December 11, 1919.

  “Cohen must be destroyed”: New York Evening World, June 19, 1923.

  “drive the exhibitor out of the game”: New York Times, June 10, 1920.

  “We are told the wages of sin”: Kentucky Irish American, September 25, 1920.

  “show altogether too much”: Philadelphia Evening Public Ledger, October 26, 1920.

  “It may be time”: Boston American, September 30, 1920.

  CHAPTER 6: MABEL

  Olive Thomas’s casket rested on a bier: My account of Olive’s funeral comes f
rom the New York Evening World, September 28, 1920; New York Daily News, September 29, 1920; and other newspaper accounts.

  “Mabel wanted to be smart”: Betty Harper Fussell, Mabel: Hollywood’s First I-Don’t-Care Girl (Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1982).

  “a shadow of her former self”: Hedda Hopper, From Under My Hat (New York: Doubleday, 1952).

  signed her letters “Blessed Baby”: Los Angeles Examiner, February 6, 1922.

  “comradeship and understanding”: Los Angeles Express, February 6, 1922.

  she had confessed her addiction: According to US Attorney Tom Green, Taylor told him that Mabel “had confessed her habit to him shortly after meeting him and had asked him to do everything possible to save her.” New York American, February 24, 1922.

  “From her French father”: Fussell, Mabel.

  “a complexion that makes you”: The original manuscript of Marion’s memoir, Off with Their Heads: A Serio-Comic Tale of Hollywood, cited in Cari Beauchamp, Without Lying Down: Frances Marion and the Powerful Women of Early Hollywood (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998).